


auld lang syne

by octoberswimmer



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-03 00:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10956069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoberswimmer/pseuds/octoberswimmer
Summary: Kageyama meets Hinata at a gas station after four years.





	auld lang syne

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. The title means "times gone by".
> 
> The shifts between past tense and present tense as well as Hinata and Shouyou are intentional and meant to show Tobio seesawing between the different images of Shouyou in his head, the one of his boyfriend and the one of the stranger who left him.

_Cold breeze, autumn night._  
_Grab a bottle, grip it tight._  
_Seeing your face. I have forgotten its lines._

 

* * *

  
Tobio's scattered thoughts find a way around the overdrunk wine at the touch of a girl's warm hand against his own. She is telling him that she will leave for home soon. "Thank you, Tobio-chan." Her saccharine voice chimes. She is a bit vain, but easy on the eyes.

Tobio remains unresponsive. The girl -Sara is her name- is no longer attractive. He brings up a bottle-clasping hand to faintly wave. To wander into the night at two in the morning by herself, he thinks, she must be brave.

 _We don't have each other's numbers_ , he remembers. _This has been a one-night offer. If I want to find a girl as incurious as her ever, I'd have to go through a whole other bar and suffer._

The gas station is empty at night. Tobio has no car. He hovers around the drinks section, looking for something light. Grabbing a bottle of milk, he entertains the idea. There is a stranger behind him, he feels. Positioning himself opposite of the fridge, he peers. The frizzy hair on top of a round head is familiar. Terrified, he tries to comfort himself, _there is no way he could be here. This is another city._ Yet there he is, clad in a wrinkly white shirt and stonewashed jeans.

Shouyou has changed - his style, his beard, his shoes. He used to wear the same pair everyday. Tobio's belly somersaults. He should have kept himself up to date. But he couldn't help it, hearing about Shouyou would make things even more agonising. The exact orange of his hair has been Tobio's fear sight since.

The owner of the orange mop talks. There is gladness in his voice.

"Kageyama!" he chirps. Tobio's heart burns. _Am I now "Kageyama" to you? After all we have been through? Have you forgotten the taste of my name? Is calling an ex by his first name a shame?_

"Hinata." Tobio responds. The word gets caught in his throat. Something he recognises as nostalgia claws at his insides. A light-hearted tingle recurs in his hands he clutches at his sides. There is this need to hug something small. A teddy bear or a plushie would come in handy right now.

"You vanished without a trace." Shouyou's voice booms from somewhere far away. His pulse in his ears muffles everything its way. Tobio thought he got over it until now. Comically becoming clear is how he actually let his pain grow. The pain sets a blockage in front of his vocal chords. If he tries to keep the conversation going, he knows he'll choke.

Shouyou nearly flinches at the stream of emotion flowing out of Tobio's unspoken words. His signature smile doesn't fade, but his eyes are fixated on the floor covered in dirt. He reaches for a bottle of milk that is the same as Tobio's. He lingers there a moment longer than he should have. When his back straightens again, Shouyou's eyes are clouded with something tempestuous. His gentle hand finds Tobio's arm and rests there.

"Come into my car." he offers. "We'll talk." To Tobio's leaden feet, the few metres to the said car is a long walk. He can only look at Shouyou's hand on his arm for the while. The sickening, poison-like taste in his mouth must be bile. The top of the ginger's head brings back so many forsaken memories. He wills himself to die right then, but the only thing that dies is the ghost of his lover's name on his lips.

First thing when they get into the car, Shouyou hurls himself on Tobio. Tobio's head hits the side window. He can't feel the added weight on his limbs. Only when Shouyou removes himself from Tobio, the searing pain begins. Suddenly his senses are sent into overdrive. Every particle in the constricted space carries something Hinata.

Hinata. This was how he used to call his ex-boyfriend when they were still in denial. Seems it will be how Tobio will call him from then on. It is harrowing how easy a habit this is to pick up on.

Denial. The times when they were both insistently turning a blind eye on the content of each other's heart. It amazes Tobio how fast time flies. It's as if he is there again with a flower in his hand, facing Hinata. He was mortified as he shoved the flower in the shorter boy's face. His own face was hot enough to fry an egg. Tobio is there again, Hinata is there again and a long movie starts playing itself in a particular forever sealed section in Tobio's head.

Sealed. This is what Tobio did with whatever was in his mind that was Hinata-related. He swept them all into a secluded part in the furthest corner of his head in the back and pretended his wounds were remedied. The rhythmic pangs turned into an irritating sting in time, only a vivid image of Hinata mouthing "goodbye" remained.

Goodbye. How strong? Fuck strength. How cold-blooded had Hinata been to still keep looking him in the eye? Tobio did nothing but loved him. He set fire to his past and things that made him, him. In the house they rented together, in the bedroom they decorated together, in the carpets they picked together, in the bed they made love in together; Tobio's all being and all thoughts, all care and all words, all feelings, all tenderness, all of him have been ready to serve him. Hinata.

Shouyou.

It had been hard to get out of the trance, even hours after Hinata left the house. The light bulb fused in their -Tobio's- bedroom - an accurate depiction of a relationship fizzling out. Tobio's heart also went out the door with Hinata, it was not just the aggregated warmth in the small but homely bedroom. They had always been too broke to switch the heating on.

The blanket is spread onto the bed underneath Tobio. Lying there with his dinner attire, he doesn't feel the cold.

Oh, he feels the cold. Just not the one directed onto his skin from the outside. There are ice fingers piercing his veins and touching his skin from the inside with every beat of his heart, tattering everything around as the blood goes back to where it came from. The hair on the nape of his neck stands on end. The slimy tentacles of an overdue realisation holds his thoughts captive. Kageyama Tobio has his eyes open, looks at the ceiling, but he can't see. There are red tints. There are purple swells. There are green specks and there is the nauseating lack of an orange presence there to engulf every trace of insecurity ever to originate from Tobio's delicate heart.

Shouyou's departure hasn't even been caused by a fight. It has been a merry night. They decided to eat out to treat themselves, Shouyou had gotten a promotion in work. Tobio pictures Shouyou's face as he fucked him quietly and longingly earlier that night. There are frostbites and beard burns in the memory.

Shouyou loved growing a beard. For the lack of body hair he always whined about, he had much hair growing in the vicinity of his head. The thick brush he had on his cheeks and chin, its colour darker than his hair from the constant exposal to a razor, always teased Tobio during their loving or sinful activities in the most pleasant way. Shouyou's aftershave has been Tobio's drug for as long as he could remember.

He can smell aftershave in the car, too. Not his drug, but a minty aroma that is too tart for his taste. From his position, his eyes aligned to Hinata's neck, he can see the hair roots all over Hinata's face even in the absence of light besides the gas station's dimmed light bulb. Hinata has his eyes on Tobio likewise, around the former setter's dry lips. He has his own lips parted like he wants to say something, but stops himself when he sees Tobio's eyes unfocused, mind apparently far away from their current location.

Hinata has baby pink lips, a trait he shares with Shouyou. It is one of the few things he sees on Hinata that Shouyou too has - other than these few, even Hinata's voice is different from Shouyou's. This new redhead speaks from somewhere lower in his throat. This new Shouyou grips looser, speaks softer and dresses in cooler colours. This new Shouyou is tuned down, Tobio doesn't know how to handle him.

Shouyou would bounce off the walls of the car right now. He would boom right next to Tobio's ear, trying to make Tobio give in to whatever ridiculous demand he has. Shouyou would complain about their sex life becoming boring and want to have car sex.

Shouyou was Tobio's boyfriend. Hinata is a stranger. A stranger that is much too like his ex-boyfriend, a stranger that knows too much about Tobio, a stranger he cherishes too much, a stranger that he just realised he hasn't forgotten for a mere moment in the last four years.

Tobio opens his mouth to heave a lungful. The bottle of milk is in his hand, forgotten. A similar oblivion has closed in on Shouyou too, he has placed his own milk bottle on the dashboard and is in a silent reverie. His look gives Tobio a discomforting déja vu, he relives the moment of an era in his live drawing to a close. Hinata has brown eyes - no, Shouyou has brown eyes and those brown eyes wield the power to destroy Tobio and revive Tobio, all at once. That night, Shouyou chose to destroy him and nothing has managed to get his pieces together since. Tobio is a man held together by the unifying power of agony, a puppet whose limbs hold onto each other by fibres of misery, Tobio has tenaciously ignored the wobble and flimsiness to his body where the treacherous glue of a lithified heart gave up from the very core where everything stayed just as fragile as before, Tobio can cover his eyes no more, Tobio is falling apart.

Hinata attempts to break the silence. When Tobio doesn't react to "Kageyama", he tries "Tobio" and that's when all his courage evaporates into thin air with the visible flinch from the mentioned man.

That "Tobio" carries the wind of that one morning when they were just up from the nap they could make time for after a night of adventures. Shouyou and him were bored, so they decided to prank one of the bulky guys hovering around their spot in the bar. Things turned out too sour for Tobio's taste, and too bland for Shouyou's.

"He didn't even punch me." he groused. "He chickened out before you could create a bruise! It wasn't worth the time."

Tobio wasn't in the mood to provide further entertainment for Shouyou by his fists and delinquent appearance, but it was always amusing to watch Shouyou raise to the bait so he left a suggestive remark.

"I'm still in the mood for bruising someone, I think we should take advantage of it."

It was a game of tag from there to their house.

Now that Tobio has started to reminisce the old days, he takes note of every single kiss that managed to clutch at his mind, not that he could forget any of them. There are chaste ones from the beginning of their relationship, when everything was new and every aspect of a relationship was waiting to be discovered. With Shouyou getting better at volleyball, the moves from his side started getting more frequent, it was the night of the day Shouyou first managed to block a spike from Tobio on a team practice that Shouyou first experienced what it was like inside of Tobio. The bolder kisses always came with a savoured time of intimacy, sometimes new kinks even. Tobio sees everything clearly, the hate and the love and the diversity - with a couple as contrasting as Tobio and Shouyou, heated fights and fierce coming together of the different poles were regular things but they have never felt this desirable, Tobio has never felt more homesick, he has never faced his pain as head-first as he does now before. As Tobio takes a stroll down the memory lane, all the hate merges with all the love and the inside of Tobio's head is a mush of Shouyou, Shouyou, Shouyou.

Tobio had been the worrier in the relationship. No matter how many times Shouyou reassured him, told him they were to last forever, Tobio couldn't dismiss the sense of an impending doom. So much that when the doom actually came, he hadn't been prepared at all. It was all just so unreal and unlike what he had expected. The only thing that the constant worrying had helped has been the numbness he utilised very much afterwards. With each "forever" from Hinata, the realisation sank deeper in Tobio's head. _Forever is a lie._

In Hinata's car is an eternally anchored sorrow, a thick fog of betrayal, a cloud of accusation, perhaps even more self-accusation that follows Tobio everywhere. The unspoken last words of an unfinished tale condense on Tobio's helpless milk bottle. Hinata's movements mirror his as he chugs the milk all in one go, licking his lips clean afterwards. Tobio lays his hand that holds the bottle on his lap. Shouyou lets his bottle fall on the littered grey floor of the compact car. Tobio thinks, _his car is small like him. His car scent has the flavour of the scent of our old house. His shoes are the same pair he had on before he left. It's as if everything has happened just seconds ago._

They share a glance. Shouyou looks pained. Tobio is just dazed.

He livens up, reaching for the doorknob. A suppressed objection, a silent resignation comes off of Hinata. He looks like he understands Tobio's struggle.

_Did he ever?_

_He probably did. We were just not good for each other._

"We were." Hinata speaks up. "Good for each other." He swallows. "At least you were good for me. I have always loved you, Kageyama." He curses under his breath. " _Tobio._ I still love you. But I am not selfish enough to let you get stuck to my side and get crushed by my greedy self as I live my life out in the world."

Tobio has heard the sob knotted in his voice. Tobio knows, oh fuck, Tobio feels the ache in Shouyou's heart.

_Let me handle the pain for you, let me chase it away._

With a "goodbye", Tobio gets out of the car. He stands there unmoved until Hinata gives in and ignites the engine.

It is the exhaust sound becoming distant and the sting in Tobio's eyes blinding him completely afterwards.

 

* * *

  
_The wind blows all over me. It's crisp, sharp and all the things giving pain to my heart._  
_I look down at my clenched fingers. I close my eyes._  
_This is the last time I'll see you in this lifetime._

**Author's Note:**

> I live a fangirl life on [tumblr](https://octoberswimmer.tumblr.com).


End file.
